How to incorporate a turn table

so far I can make basic welding operations (spot welding, arc welding) with my robot. However, to extend my station, I want to incorporate a turn table to be able to weld bigger workpieces, but I'm running into problems:

- My current robot has 6 axes. Now I want to add a turn table with two additional joints: The entire table is allowed to rotate around the x-axis and an additional rotating plate to rotate around the z-axis. So I got two aditional joints.

- My question: How can I make these additional joints work together with the robot? I was thinking about using a 7th axis...can this work?

- I can manually set the rotation of the turn table in order to help the robot to reach certain location it wasn't able to reach before. Is it possible to do this automatically (via inverse kinematics?)

- For instance: I'm using Set External Axis for a welding point right now and set the table 15 degrees towards the robot in order to make the robot reach the position. Can the software automatically calculate the minium angle needed?

- One more thing: Right now I'm attaching the turn table to the robot and the external joint using the External Axis Tab in the Robot Properties. How do I set up the robot correctly, so that it works the way I described above (automatic angle adjustment of the turn table)? The Problem is that the online help only covers a gantry and positioner...it does not really help in my case because the position of the turn table does not affect the position of the table directly (only indirectly). Hope you know what I mean.

Re: How to incorporate a turn table

Which version of Process Simulate are you using ? And what setup (eMserver? Disconnected?).

It is not possible to create a Station in Process Simulate disconnected, but starting from version 11.1.TR3 you can open a study in Line Simulation mode as long as all of your operations are under a Compound Operation too.